Anna Kepner’s 16-year-old stepbrother was kicked out of his family’s Florida home as the feds are reportedly considering charges against him in connection to the cheerleader’s cruise ship death.
The boy’s mother, Shauntel Kepner, and her husband sent the teen to live with relatives to avoid the “risk of any danger” to the other children in their home, Kepner’s attorney, Millicent Athanason, said in an emergency custody hearing on Friday, according to People.
The hearing was part of an ongoing dispute between Kepner and her ex-husband.
Athanason also indicated Friday that Kepner’s stepbrother, who’s been named in court filings as a suspect in the case, could soon face charges.
Anna Kepner, 18, was found dead on a Carnival cruise ship on Nov. 7, her body shoved under a bed, stuffed in a blanket and covered by life vests. Instagram/@anna.kepner16
Thomas Hudson and Shauntel Kepner with their three children in an undated Facebook photo. Facebook/Thomas Hudson
“We’re not sure what the FBI is going to do … Whether he’s going to be charged federally or whether they’re going to turn it over to the state,” Athanason said Friday, Fox News reported.
The FBI did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment, and neither state nor federal investigators have named a suspect in the mysterious case.
Anna Kepner, 18, was found dead on a Carnival cruise ship on Nov. 7, her body shoved under a bed, stuffed in a blanket and covered by life vests.
Kepner during a previous cruise she took with her grandparents on May 3, 2025. Instagram/@anna.kepner16The cheerleader’s death has been ruled a homicide and, according to her death certificate, she “was mechanically asphyxiated by other person(s)” on Nov. 6 — possibly strangled in a bar hold, indicated by bruises on her neck.
Anna had shared a cabin with her stepbrother and brother, 14.
Prior to her death, the three teens had been “best friends” and got along well, Shauntel Kepner told the court.
But she said her son had skipped his usual medication for ADHD and insomnia for two days while on the cruise.
The hearing was part of a custody battle between Kepner and her ex-husband, Thomas Hudson, who argued that the girl’s death proved that his 9-year-old daughter may be unsafe in her mother’s care, FOX reported.
Shauntel’s older son, 18-year-old Andrew Hudson, also took the stand.
Hudson now lives with his father, but he described past violent treatment at the hands of Shauntel Kepner and Anna’s father, Chris Kepner, before he moved in with his dad full-time.
In one incident, the Kepners picked him up from school, and he was “put in a chokehold and held it against the seat” when he tried to get out of the car and go back to his dad’s house in Hernando County, Hudson said in testimony reported by FOX.
Florida Circuit Judge Michelle Pruitt-Studstill sided with Kepner and found that her 9-year-old daughter was in “any imminent risk of harm.”
